The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors convenes its monthly meeting Thursday at UNC Charlotte. During the two-day meeting, the board will consider a proposal that would close three academic centers.

Remembrances are pouring in of the man who built North Carolina basketball: Dean Smith. Smith died Saturday night at the age of 83. From the early 1960s to the late 1990s, he coached the UNC-Chapel Hill men’s basketball team to 879 wins, 11 Final Fours, and two national titles. Charlotte resident Tommy Tomlinson wrote a moving account for ESPN in March of Smith’s legacy on and off the court, as well as his struggle with dementia.

HILLSBOROUGH An Orange County grand jury Monday morning accused former UNC-Chapel Hill African studies chairman Julius Nyang’oro of a felony for accepting $12,000 from the university for a summer class that he did not teach.

Nyang’oro, 59, of Durham was indicted on a charge of obtaining property by false pretenses, Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said. The charge is a lower-level felony and Nyang’oro is not likely to face prison time if convicted.

CHAPEL HILL North Carolina will start the season without P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald, the school announced on Thursday before coach Roy Williams’ first regularly-scheduled press conference of the season.

It’s not a surprise that Hairston and McDonald, a pair of guards, will miss the season-opener on Friday night against Oakland. The NCAA is investigating both players in separate cases that likely involve impermissible benefits.

The Board of Governors for the UNC system continues to stand behind UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp in the wake of a scandal involving two fundraising officers. But board members also made it clear to Thorp in a meeting Friday they’re concerned about the latest hit to the state’s flagship university.

The board’s discussion of the most recent resignations was closed to the public. UNC system president Tom Ross said after he still supports UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp.

A vice chancellor and key fundraiser for UNC-Chapel Hill has resigned. Matt Kupec offered his resignation after UNC found he paid for personal trips with the university’s money.

Kupec took trips on the university’s dime with Tami Hansbrough. She’s the divorced mother of Tyler Hansbrough, the former UNC basketball star who now plays for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. She was working for the university as a major gifts officer. But now she’s on administrative leave and Kupec has resigned.

An academic scandal that has engulfed UNC-Chapel Hill’s athletic department may go back more than a decade.

Until last weekend, we already knew that the school’s Department of African and Afro-American Studies offered several classes and independent study courses that provided little or no instruction. The classes were popular with athletes, particularly football players.

An internal investigation that reached those findings last spring only went back four years, and warned that fraud could go back several years.

Nearly one-third of American workers get fewer than six hours of sleep a night. That's according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And with increasing attention to disorders, especially sleep apnea, the number of sleep centers across the country has increased. In response, UNC Charlotte and UNC-Chapel Hill have teamed up to offer an online degree in neurodiagnostics and sleep science. The schools tout it as the first bachelor’s program of its kind in the country.